Lots of people still use it —

Internet Explorer 10 finally released for Windows 7

Almost, but not quite, identical to the Windows 8 version.

Four months after Microsoft released Internet Explorer 10 with and for Windows 8, Redmond has finally released a version of the company's newest browser for Windows 7 users in 95 other languages too. More than 700 million people now have access to the company's most up-to-date browser.

The new browser will be available as an optional update immediately. Anyone with the release preview installed will have it sent as an "important" update. That's significant because Windows Update will, in its default configuration, install it silently and automatically. Over the coming months, Microsoft will classify Internet Explorer 10 as "important" in more and more markets to ensure it is installed automatically as widely as possible.

This marks a significant change from Microsoft's past practices. Traditionally, the company has released new browsers only as optional updates, and further, as interactive updates that required clicking through a EULA before installation actually took place. In late 2011, the company changed this policy, converting Internet Explorer 9 to an automatic ("important") update.

Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 7 will be near-identical to its Windows 8 counterpart. This includes features such as support for the Pointer Events touch API and hardware acceleration using Direct2D and DirectWrite. To that end, installing Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 7 requires the installation of a platform update that brings Windows 7's version of these APIs in line with Windows 8.

The controversial Do Not Track feature intended to reduce the ability of companies to track user behavior online will also be enabled by default.

There will be one important difference between the versions, however. Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 includes an embedded version of Flash that gets its updates from Windows Update, rather than through Adobe's installer. On Windows 7, Flash will not be embedded. Instead, it will use the same ActiveX plugin as Internet Explorer 9 did. Updates will have to be installed using Adobe's updater, not Microsoft's.

In my experience, Adobe's auto-updater usually only sometimes runs, and pretty much only prompts for updates on initial system startup (but usually not before a browser and already been loaded, which then needs to be killed for the updater to work). It also has had issues in the past with UAC elevation from a non-admin account.

True, Adobe's autoupdater is patchy at best, but Microsoft's bundling the updater into Windows Update means third party updater software won't update Adobe for IE so if a patch is released and Microsft is dicking around, the ONLY way to patch Flash issues is to manually go to Adobe's site and download the IE addon.

Considering the vast majority of people don't use third-party updater software, I'd call this a huge net win for the Internet.

In what way? That someone using Internet Explorer has to themselves check their Flash version, know it it out-of-date, and then manually install Flash over the current generation? Yeah, that's way more likely than just letting it be out of date because Microsoft decided to supersede everyone else' authority to update Flash but can't get its shit together.

It would have been nice if MS had released IE10 for Vista. I mean given that underneath the skin Windows 7 is really just Vista Mark 2 and therefore they are very similar, how hard could it be? Mind you its not really such a big deal, IE9 is really not that bad and there's plenty of other browsers to choose from :-)

(Oh and just to head off the anti Vista troll comments; I run both Vista and Win 7, and although I like Win 7; Vista is fine as well and very stable - providing of course it's running on modern hardware and has been set-up correctly and service pack 2 installed and all the updates since.)

True, Adobe's autoupdater is patchy at best, but Microsoft's bundling the updater into Windows Update means third party updater software won't update Adobe for IE so if a patch is released and Microsft is dicking around, the ONLY way to patch Flash issues is to manually go to Adobe's site and download the IE addon.

Considering the vast majority of people don't use third-party updater software, I'd call this a huge net win for the Internet.

In what way? That someone using Internet Explorer has to themselves check their Flash version, know it it out-of-date, and then manually install Flash over the current generation? Yeah, that's way more likely than just letting it be out of date because Microsoft decided to supersede everyone else' authority to update Flash but can't get its shit together.

Unlike the clusterfuck from last year concerning Apple and Java security updates, Microsoft is not "dicking" around.

Microsoft announces: "On February 12, 2013, Microsoft released an update (KB2805940) for all supported editions of Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, and Windows RT. The update addresses the vulnerabilities described in Adobe Security bulletin APSB13-05. For more information about this update, including download links, see Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 2805940. Note The update for Windows RT is available via Windows Update only."

If/when Microsoft will start to "dick around", we can have this discussion again.

Eventually, I'd like forced, silent updates, like Chrome (except in corporate environments, of course). It shouldn't really be an option. Though with all the leaks of Windows Blue, IE 11 will be coming out in the next few months, and I guess we'll see how that works.

The one reason, I think, that Chrome is more up-to-date is because people barely even see it. They close Chrome one day and then get the update when it reopens. IE needs the same kind of thing. Oh...and extensions. Especially since Google is now making some moves to make the dev of Ad Block Plus upset, Microsoft has a chance to court the guy and make headway into normal extensions.

IE10 is updated in a similar silent update fashion at least on Windows 8 because of Windows Updates on Windows 8 works. After 2 days of sitting there to install your computer will install, if there is no activity within those 2 days ( within a set period of time ) your computer is updated.

I don't think IE10 needs extensions its only asking for trouble with having to make sure the add-ons have to be protected from one another and protect the system from the extensions otherwise you have malicious extensions being automatically installed and infecting systems.

Its already happen to Firefox ( the malicious add-on aspect at least ) and already forced them to change how add-ons/extensions work.

In what way? That someone using Internet Explorer has to themselves check their Flash version, know it it out-of-date, and then manually install Flash over the current generation? Yeah, that's way more likely than just letting it be out of date because Microsoft decided to supersede everyone else' authority to update Flash but can't get its shit together.

Except Microsoft has published the same patch Adobe has since Wndows 8 was released on the same day as Adobe.

Only during the Windows 8 Beta did a patch wait a small amount of time, there was an easy workaround, disable Flash.

It would have been nice if MS had released IE10 for Vista. I mean given that underneath the skin Windows 7 is really just Vista Mark 2 and therefore they are very similar, how hard could it be? Mind you its not really such a big deal, IE9 is really not that bad and there's plenty of other browsers to choose from :-)

(Oh and just to head off the anti Vista troll comments; I run both Vista and Win 7, and although I like Win 7; Vista is fine as well and very stable - providing of course it's running on modern hardware and has been set-up correctly and service pack 2 installed and all the updates since.)

For the love of god, would people stop saying this stupid shit. Win 7 may not have completely rewritten everything like Vista did, but it is a huge evolution and improved a ton of sub systems over Vista.

The problem I have is that I need IE 8 for one of the applications I use. Even IE 9's compatibility mode doesn't work. Now, I realize that this is the vendor's fault and not MS's, but it still pisses me off that I have to keep an older version of IE just for this one application. Otherwise, I use Chrome for everything else.

I'm going to give IE10 a shot, but I'm probably just going to have to uninstall it shortly afterwards.

Try Spoon.Net. They have a software virtualization product. You can run real instances of IE6, 7, 8, and 9 side-by-side (not to mention older versions of Chrome, FF, etc). Invaluable for a web developer and a great way to run safe and secure IE10 on your system while using Spoon for your one legacy application.

No, until that latest Flash patch, Flash for IE on Windows 8 was still on 11.3. That's not a beta period, that was a solid 3 and a half months of Microsoft being severely behind on Flash updates.

There's a difference between regular updates and security updates.

Let's recap the security update situation:

Late:APSB12-18 released August 14, 2012 - on Windows Update September 21, 2012APSB12-22 released October 8, 2012 - on Windows Update October 23, 2012 for ARM

Same day:APSB12-19 released August 21, 2012 - on Windows Update September 21, 2012 APSB12-22 released October 8, 2012 - on Windows Update October 8, 2012 for x86APSB12-24 released November 6, 2012 - on Windows Update November 6, 2012APSB12-27 released December 11, 2012 - on Windows Update December 11, 2012APSB13-01 released January 8, 2013 - on Windows Update January 8, 2013APSB13-04 released February 7, 2013- on Windows Update February 7, 2013APSB13-05 released February 12, 2013 - on Windows Update February 12, 2013

There was no 3 month delay for security updates. The longest delay was 1 month and 1 week. In the last 4 months, all the security updates were released on the same day by Adobe and Microsoft.

The support period for Windows 8 started on October 30, 2012, and there were no delays after that date.

What you may be talking about is about regular / feature updates. I don't know why those are released later for IE10/Win 8, but I could assume that either they are a lower priority for Adobe due to low market share of IE 10 (if you think this is bad, you should see how much they care about Linux), or MS is also testing them after they are released by Adobe and this introduces delays (less likely in my opinion).

I don't know how large the differences are between the ARM and the x86 versions, but the IE UI in the Metro versions is very different. Probably this is another reason for the delays, and letting Adobe handle updates would not help in this case.

Please do NOT encourage people to switch to IE10. Yes, in the short term it's better than other IE browsers, but in the long term, you'll have the same issues we did with IE 6, 7, 8 and 9. Microsoft will not update any capabilities or features of their browser throughout the years that it is used. Instead, any new features will be put into the next browser which will, again, be tied to a purchase/upgrade to a newer operating system.

Pushing people to use IE10 instead of Firefox, Chrome, Opera or even Maxthon, will eventually lead to the same problems in pushing the web forward. If someone uses Chrome or Firefox, for example, when a new version arrives, they will not need to purchase a new operating system to use it. Over the past year, someone using either of those browsers has seen the HTML5 features they can view increase from about 50% coverage to 84-90%. IE10 has not increased over that same time (despite moving from beta to full release) and will continue to stay the same 64% coverage of current HTML5 features (and 0% of any new features introduced over the next few years).

DISCOURAGE the use of any browsers that refuse to adapt and force the purchase of a new product in order to get the latest capabilities.

Just finished installing IE 10 in Windows 7. After the install, looked at taskman and see two instances of the same thing running - both are ie4uinit.exe. Looked at the properties, and see suddenly there is an "Unknown Account (S-1-15-2-1)' with permissions for 'Read & Execute' and 'Read'

What the heck is ie4uinit.exe and why did it suddenly appear (both instances) with an unknown account?

never mind, figured it out. After the install and the reboot it prompts for when you get back to the desktop the first time after installing IE 10, it loads up the ie4uinit.exe thing which is a per-user customization utility that is evidently used by IE 10. It takes a second reboot to dispense with them and the Unknown Account was the utility account while it was doing its thing. So after you install it, after its install reboot do an additional reboot and things are cleared right up.

I've also noticed now with IE 10 that when you are posting something on a forum like here at Ars, the MS spell checking utility is running.

Please do NOT encourage people to switch to IE10. Yes, in the short term it's better than other IE browsers, but in the long term, you'll have the same issues we did with IE 6, 7, 8 and 9. Microsoft will not update any capabilities or features of their browser throughout the years that it is used. Instead, any new features will be put into the next browser which will, again, be tied to a purchase/upgrade to a newer operating system.

Funny how this is posted on an article about an older OS getting the newest IE...

Also, IE9 wasn't tied to any release of a new OS. Microsoft already moved away from that.

If someone uses Chrome or Firefox, for example, when a new version arrives, they will not need to purchase a new operating system to use it.

You do realize that you just posted this comment on a story where Microsoft is bringing IE10 to Windows 7, thus meaning that people don't have to purchase a new operating system in order to use it, right?

If someone uses Chrome or Firefox, for example, when a new version arrives, they will not need to purchase a new operating system to use it.

You do realize that you just posted this comment on a story where Microsoft is bringing IE10 to Windows 7, thus meaning that people don't have to purchase a new operating system in order to use it, right?

OTOH, I can get Chrome and FF for XP and Vista. In that situation, I'd have to spend money to get IE 10.

For a long time I used Chrome - but I've been massively put off Chrome recently due to Google's built-in advertising. (Seriously, they tried to sell me a Chromebook from the new tab page. wtf, Google. I can't use your browser if I can't trust you to not abuse your power.)

More recently I've been using Firefox. Firefox is pretty good - but it has a couple of minor quirks that I don't like.

So I've been looking forward to trying IE 10. I'll probably end up sticking with Firefox, but I think it's high-time IE at least got another try from me.

(Unfortunately, I have to wait a bit longer because it still isn't showing up in my Windows updates.)

IE 10 appears to be good news. There is little enough disruption in the UI that it is not that unreasonable to install it automatically. It even has some value for me since it appears to work with the IPython notebook without any problem. I certainly am someone who strongly prefers IE to Chrome or Firefox primarily because it gives me more control over how it works. That provides some level of defense against all the arrogant developers who are intent on inflicting their half baked updates on the world.

IE 10 appears to be good news. There is little enough disruption in the UI that it is not that unreasonable to install it automatically. It even has some value for me since it appears to work with the IPython notebook without any problem. I certainly am someone who strongly prefers IE to Chrome or Firefox primarily because it gives me more control over how it works. That provides some level of defense against all the arrogant developers who are intent on inflicting their half baked updates on the world.

I don't really mind IE at all these days, since 8, but cannot imagine what version of Firefox you might be using that gives you less control than IE. I'm not bashing or trolling you, or IE ... I use IE, FF, and Chrome, all three, daily. I just don't get what you mean there.

Would sure be nice to have some kind of classic option in Windows to keep it at 7, office 2010, keep live mail (not outlook.com), and IE9. Better HTML5 compliance isn't worth the ass ugly metro shit.

As far as integrating Flash, are they fully fucking retarded? Flash is a MAJOR hole in windows security, my iPad is 100x safer because of no flash and i dont miss it one bit. Disable that POS, don't integrate it... morons.

For the love of god, would people stop saying this stupid shit. Win 7 may not have completely rewritten everything like Vista did, but it is a huge evolution and improved a ton of sub systems over Vista.

It is indeed a lot nicer but Vista was the framework to make 7 happen. Yeah, Vista had problems, but aero alone made it a massive upgrade over the fischer price interface. Also video desktops rocked even though some legacy programs had problems with it.

Please do NOT encourage people to switch to IE10. Yes, in the short term it's better than other IE browsers, but in the long term, you'll have the same issues we did with IE 6, 7, 8 and 9. Microsoft will not update any capabilities or features of their browser throughout the years that it is used. Instead, any new features will be put into the next browser which will, again, be tied to a purchase/upgrade to a newer operating system.

Pushing people to use IE10 instead of Firefox, Chrome, Opera or even Maxthon, will eventually lead to the same problems in pushing the web forward. If someone uses Chrome or Firefox, for example, when a new version arrives, they will not need to purchase a new operating system to use it. Over the past year, someone using either of those browsers has seen the HTML5 features they can view increase from about 50% coverage to 84-90%. IE10 has not increased over that same time (despite moving from beta to full release) and will continue to stay the same 64% coverage of current HTML5 features (and 0% of any new features introduced over the next few years).

DISCOURAGE the use of any browsers that refuse to adapt and force the purchase of a new product in order to get the latest capabilities.

*HTML5 numbers from html5test.com

FUD aside, it's still a good idea to upgrade IE to the latest version just to lower the market share of older versions.

I have used Chrome for all needs on my laptop and more recently on my Android phone, and I love what it brings to the table. However, I won't rule out IE just yet. As long as they have the speed that I like in Chrome, along with the ability to stream video clips instead of downloading by default, I'll take a look into it.